FT: Newcastle 4 Stoke 1: Rejuvenated Newcastle Demolish Stoke

Written by Ed Harrison

9:58pm Wednesday, January 16th, 2008

Commented 58 times

Newcastle gave their best performance of the season, when they easily beat Stoke City 4-1 for a fairy tale ending to a wonderful day for Geordie supporters as they welcomed messiah Kevin Keegan back to manage the club.

After just 8 minutes Newcastle were a goal up as Michael Owen got a deflection in the six yard box and poked home from close range. A typical Michael Owen goal and the crowd erupted.

After 29 minutes Newcastle were reduced to 10 men when Emre was shown a straight red card. Eustace broke from defense and was taken out by Emre midway inside Stoke’s half. Uriah Rennie showed no hesitation in giving the Turkish midfielder a straight card .

Replays showed Rennie had no real choice but to send Emre off. Now we will really be short of midfielders for the visit of Bolton on Saturday since Emre, Smith, Butt, Faye and Smith are all unavailable.

However, following Emre’s dismissal Newcastle continued to attack and from a beautiful N’Zogbia corner after 31 minutes Claudio Cacapa got nicely into space and headed the ball powerfully past Simonsen for his second goal for the club. A great time to get a second goal.

For the remainder of the half Newcastle didn’t seem to be affected by the loss of Emre and continued to attack right up to half time and looked a yard quicker than Stoke City.

Newcastle continued to attack in the second half seemingly not too worried by being a man down. After 68 minutes Viduka flicked a long ball downfield to his left and into the path of Milner, and the youngster drove a low right-footed drive into the bottom corner of the net from the edge of the area. A great goal by the 22 year-old.

After 76 minutes Newcastle make a quick break from a Stoke free-kick and suddenly it’s three-on-one in favor of the Geordies and Milner released N’Zogbia to his right, Shawcross was drawn to the Frenchman and he slipped through the ball to Duff who was clean through on goal.Â Duff coolly slotted the ball low past Simonsen for his first goal of the season. A nice goal by Damien who looked sharp all night.

But after 89 minutes the clean sheet that we had hoped for wasn’t to be, and Liam Lawrence scored a nice goal as he curled the ball past Given just before the end of the game. That’s a little warning that Newcastle still have great difficulty keeping clean sheets and their defense is still not good enough.

But it meant nothing to the game and Newcastle finished off the 2 minutes of injury time with the crowd of 35,000 making a tremendous noise of excitement and relief – that King Kev is back.

Charles N’Zogbia, who played central midfield, as many supporters had wanted under Sam Allardcye, had a great game and was voted man of the match. Maybe this is Charles’ best position – he looked a real little dynamo and poetry in motion tonight.

Wow. This is exactly what we needed today. The clean sheet woulda been great, but considering how sterile we were in last saturday’s game this is an outfookin’ standing result. We got some confidence back and got a new manager, all in one day. Too bad about Emre. That’s gonna be a tough loss. Who do we have available? Lua lua? We don’t really have any CDM types available, but who cares? Let’s get stuck in on saturday and we won’t need any.

Gr8 stuff….smiles on all geordie faces tonight.Just love the feeling of winning,something we didnt get much of with that other “TODGER”. Zoggers is the man,just brilliant. Think that Fat Ass used him at left back…what a DICK

i apolagise to mike ashley for slagging him off i week ago. tom toon just youtubed Chikhaoui as i had to see why you kept going on about him he does look quality exackly what we could do with in cm cant see us going in for him though

It may have only been Stoke City – but by crikey that win felt good, very, very good.

Under Big Sam, we might have just sneaked a dull 1-0 win, or even worse. Now, with King Kev back in Toon, we hammer Stoke, with 10 men 4-1.

BTW That tosspot Eustace or whatever his name is should have been sent off for his tackle on Emre, then Emre would never have seen red.

Yet again, Rennie (who is clearly anti-NUFC) wanted to be in the limelight. He’s a disgraceful referee and a complete wanker full stop.

Still, nothing stopped us winning and feeling great ’cause King Kev is back with us, so fu@k you Rennie, fu@k you Fergie and Wenger and fu@k you to everyone else who’s had their 10p worth out of ouor club recently.

Century Radio had N’Zogbia as Man of the Match the match sponsers had Duff as man of the match, Milner scored a class goal. Just goes to show what we all knew, we have some good Players, just the right Man to lead them. I think shearer will be the next Man to come in, as No2 or something. Happy days are here again.LALALALALLALALALALALALLLLALAL happy days are here again.

SO heres what I think…IF Shearer is reallly interested in coaching Newcastle in the future then dont you think he should start working on his coaching rather than his TV commentating skills? Since we all know just how much Keegan loves to work with reserve teams, IF Shearer were really concerned about becoming a good coach I would become the reserve team coach and try to hone my skills and produce some talent that Shearer could then inherit when Keegan steps down, sacked, or flees in the night.

Anyways…I am excited…and I still believe strongly that our best young asset is N’Zogbia…he will soon be a regular for France as well I believe.

lets be realistic like, im so happy i could fookin cry but i think a european place is a bit too far out of reach this year, i reckon we ll use the rest of this season to build our momentum and that and then come out all guns blazin in august with a couple fresh faces

I thought Ashley would go for Keegan and won decent money on it (got 15-1 with Betfair – yipee!!) but that is nothing compared to the joyous feeling that we can now look forward to some real excitement!

Keegan is a superb motivator of players and has had a stunning initial impact at every club he has managed – look at his first seasons with Fulham and Man City! He will lift the club without any doubt – could see how his arrival lifted the fans even before tonights game and you could see what effect he has already had on players. Players played tonight with a freedom and passion that they would have been scared to do under Sam (or Roeder, Souness etc. etc.).

Forget the doubters, forget “never go back”, lets get on a Keegan wagon and see how far passion for our club can take us.

Keegan wants silverware… why else would he come? i think the cons are clear- if our current form persists the he will have failed, failed to revive- but some how i think there will be a at least a 5% increase in our away fans and the st james will be heard as far as high Heaton and certain parts of Jesmond!

but he wants silverware- let us accept that the king has not won silverware in his last decade of wondering from his native soil..but he has won spurs and in my judgment has distinguished himslef… Fulham, div 2 i think, a staple of the premeiership today, in danger of receeding, kev took them to the title and brought them up and the momentum was set for Tigana when England called Kev, they asked him, he didnt ak them, he even took it opart time remeber?? then full time- with england he was honest but he did take a one steven gerrrard to the euro 2000 when he was in his maiden season….Man city took them to the title and brought them back where they belong in the premiership- he is still loved in Manchester! and he left when he felt his time was needed elsewhere, supporting the development of young talent- something the F.A are scratching their heads to come up with- yes it was a circus but it made it fun for the young and increased their love for the game..

now fortune has brought back to tyneside… i think he knows himself anything less than a trophy will be failure for him and thats why im saying hold tighth boys its gonna be a hell of a ride!!!!!!!

That was the ATTACK !ATTACK !ATTACK !Toon that i remember from King Kev all those years ago. Im on cloud nine. I can now take my bairn to the matches and he can see first hand what he’s only seen on the old video’s. PRIDE will be restored. so sod off all you Man u fans! NO more walkovers!! The King is back!!

Cards on the table here, my first choice was Morinhio. I thought Keegans day had gone and called him for letting the reserve go when he was in charge. But when I heard the news that he taken the job this afternoon the hairs all over my body have been standing up. Then after tonights match, well what more can I say. Special K, King Kev, the Messiah or whatever you want to him, is without doubt back. My God. He picked that team with out a shadow of doubt, boy they played and he hasn’t had time to see them properly yet. Some of our younger players are in for a ride of their lives and they will love it. They will learn how to win by scoring more than the opposition instead of trying to stop them scoring.

MOTD did show extended highlights of the game. You just had to press the red button and it took you to another channel with MOTD extra on it.

For those that didn’t see it. Duff was amazing. His fourth goal was simply terrific. And better still for each goal, Ashley, Mort and Keegan were jumping around like giddy school children.

From the highlights I saw.

Nzogbia was mesmerizing and Keegan seemed very impressed with him.

Duff played like he did at Blackburn.

Owen was so impressive and lively around the 12 yard box. The defenders didn’t know where he’d run to half the time. He constantly dragged defenders away leaving the space for Milner and Duff to run into. A world class player.

Milner’s pace caused chaos down the right. He keep making them run backwards the whole time. His goal was excellent. A knock down from Viduka and he picked it up and buried it into the bottom from 15 yards. Mort jumped about 10 feet off the ground in excitement.

You could tell from the body language of the players that they were glad to see the back of Fat Sam.

All in all we played with a swagger and confidence I haven’t seen for years.

James . Just the begining, he hasn’t had time to work with them yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has inherited a better squad than he did the last time, expect the rest of the Prem to be sh*tting themselves when they come to SJP. WOW

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health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

The cancer spread in the bones but it has been stabilized and has not spread further.

I am still recovering from some of the side effects of the chemo treatment - it's mainly severe fatigue and exhaustion.

Stage 4 cancer is not curable so I will continue to have cat scans and bone scans every four months to ensure the cancer is not spreading.

It is as it is - these things happen - and I will do my very best under the circumstances.

Ed Harrison

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